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Roanoke Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Chris Buttery

God’s Design for Marriage

Well, this morning I want to talk with you about God's design for marriage.

Some of us probably made the mistake of buying, and we still do, and I'm 1 of those culprits, who buy maybe children's toys or pieces of furniture that you have to put together.

It comes with those ominous words, assembly required.

Those of us who did probably a small percentage read through those directions completely before assembling the thing.

We said to ourselves, hey, I've got this.

I'm kind of a bit of a handy person and we'll take care of this no problem at all.

And then you plunge right in and you realize, boy, I should have probably read those instructions.

This thing's not looking the way it ought to look.

I can't tell you and I won't take the time to tell you about a play set that I put together for my kids when we lived in Pennsylvania when they were smaller.

Oh yeah, an hour, hour and a half, be done.

So let me tell you, as you probably already know, for those that are married, marriage comes with the label assembly required.

It takes a lifetime of work to put it together the right way.

Now there are a lot of folk, unfortunately, that plunge in without carefully reading the instruction manual, confident they're gonna figure it all out, but later realize how quickly they get themselves into trouble and how much they need to read and reread the manufacturer's instructions.

Most of the problems we get into in marriage can be traced to our neglect, really, of reading and obeying God's instructions.

Now, just a couple of weeks ago, I shared a message entitled God's Wisdom for Families.

And in that message, we talked about the times in which we live evil times, and that there are certain cultural factors that are impacting our families.

We also talked about secular concepts, secular concepts that are contrary to God's will and His word and His way that affect even Christians' beliefs and practices, which is affecting marriage and parenting and the home and the home community.

And what we learned is that we need to walk carefully, that we need to walk wisely, living by the word of God, and that God is inviting us to buy back our opportunities.

So over the course of the next few weeks, we're gonna take a look a little bit more in detail at some aspects of family life today, marriage and maybe over the next week or 2.

And then we'll talk about singleness and we'll talk about parenting and these types of things.

But early in the book of Genesis, really in the book of beginnings, and if you have your Bible, please turn with me there to Genesis chapter 2.

We want to take a look at a few verses together.

We find in these verses God's design for marriage, God's design for marriage.

And we're gonna begin by reading verse 18 and we're gonna read right through till the end of the chapter.

Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, and when you get there, can you say amen?

We have a few there, I'm going to wait for a few more amens.

All right, let's go ahead and let's read together.

And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.

There was 1 man who said that here this morning.

I will make him a helper comparable to him.

Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the air and brought them rather to Adam to see what he would call them.

And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.

And so Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept.

And he took 1 of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.

Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made into a woman and he brought her to the man.

And Adam said, Now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become 1 flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." This text describes the original marriage, And it's the basis for almost everything else the Bible has to say about marriage.

It explains God's reasons for designing marriage, and it also gives us several principles, if applied, would enable us to build solid, satisfying marriages that honor God.

There are 2 things that I want to highlight in today's message, 2 things that I believe the text brings out, and that is God designed marriage to meet our needs for companionship.

That's 1 of the things that we'll talk about here this morning.

The other thing, and we won't spend a lot of time on it, And that is God designed marriage to meet our needs for companionship.

The other thing, and we won't spend a lot of time on it, and that is God designed marriage to provide an illustration of our relationship with Him.

So those are the 2 things that I want to tackle here with you this morning.

And so when you look at Genesis chapter 2 and these particular words, you notice that God introduces Himself here as the Lord God, the Lord God, that is Yahweh God.

And that emphasizes, Lord God emphasizes His covenant relationship with His people.

In Genesis chapter 1, He's God, he's Elohim, he's the all powerful creator.

In Genesis 2, he's referred to as the Lord God, the 1 who is the covenant keeping God, the powerful creator God is also a personal God who loves his creatures, who loves the work of his hands.

So this caring and this personal God knew that man he created had a need.

Now, when you step back and you read Genesis 1 and 2, the words of chapter 2, verse 18 kind of hits you abruptly.

Those words say, as as Roy echoed in Amen, it is not good that man should be alone.

So throughout chapter 1, it's interesting, God makes this on day 1 and it's what?

On day 2 He makes something and it is good.

And on day 3 and on day 4 and on day 5 and on day 6 it is good.

And actually very good according to the Word of God.

But this is the first time where God says that something in creation is not good.

Now you think about that for just a moment.

You have sinless man in a perfect Eden, in fellowship with God, in a perfect environment.

What more could Adam have needed or wanted?

Well, apparently not according to God, the maker of man.

God's evaluation was that man needed a human companion to correspond to him.

Now, sometimes you might hear some super Spiritual people say that if you're lonely, then that must mean there is something wrong in your spiritual life.

And that's not quite true, because God acknowledges our need, not only of fellowship with Him, but also with a life partner.

Now that's not to say that every person should be or will get married.

In fact, Paul tells us that God has called some people to remain single and through their singleness glorify God.

Nor is this to say that marriage will meet all of our needs for companionship.

Married people still need friends of the same sex.

But it is what God is saying here, The main reason that God designed marriage was to meet human need for companionship.

And so what we're going to do for just a moment is talk about and affirm a couple of things.

First of all, that God is the 1 who designed marriage.

His Word gives us the principles that bring about a satisfying relationship, a satisfactory marriage.

So since God designed marriage, it takes 3 to make a good marriage.

Now, you've heard that 2 is company, 3 is a crowd, but not in marriage.

It takes 3 to make a marriage, God, the man, and the woman.

For a Christian to marry an unbeliever really is not only to disobey God, but also enter marriage lacking a crucial ingredient.

Marriage has been described, if you think about it with me, as a triangle with God at the top, man and woman down, husband and wife down at the bottom.

And as each partner moves closer and closer to God, what happens to the partner?

The partners, they're growing closer and closer to 1 another.

But If a person is pulling away from God, then what happens to the relationship?

It has an effect that could pull each other further and further apart.

As soon as Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they experienced alienation from 1 another.

He blamed the woman for giving the fruit to him and then Eve blamed God for making the serpent.

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God’s Design for Marriage

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